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Dublin, Ireland

Posted on April 25, 2018

How much fun is it to almost miss your connection in Munich? I would say it all depends on you liking your name blaring loudly on airport speakers, pronounced with that particularly German semi-military ‘gusto.’

But come on, it’s really not my fault the smoking lounge is a mile away from the gate - that’s just bad airport design. On the upside, I had an (uncanny) ride in an otherwise empty airport bus; also, everyone on the plane seemed really happy to see me, just shaking their heads in the face of the awful airport design. But forgive my ramblings, I should maybe mention that I’m headed towards Dublin to attend and present at this year’s IAAS (Irish Association for American Studies) conference.

And yes, it’s about Lovecraft again - don’t judge me, I’ll be milking this one until the whole wide world knows about the weird conflagration of orientalism, nativism, and linguistics in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” It’s my first time in Ireland and my biggest concern is that I won’t be able to understand anything people might say to me.

In fact, I feel that everyone on the plane is Irish with lots of blonde children screaming in Gaelic, at least that’s what I believe it to be … it might as well be Croatian. I am somehow reminded of the movie Titanic - as the camera pans towards the fourth class, way below in the belly of the doomed ship and full of poor emigrants fleeing poverty and famine. But that’s not a good comparison at all, since the food on the Titanic couldn’t possibly have been that bad as Lufthansa’s sorry excuse for lunch (sloppy cheese sandwich and a no name chocolate bar - come on, not even a friggin’ Snickers?!).

As the child next to me smears her chocolate fingers across my laptop screen for the third time, I put on my best smile. I am happy to be here, I am the chosen one (what does that even mean?). But now our Skytanic (clever or dumb, you be the judge) is slowly descending through towering ridges of bright-white clouds and suddenly I see blue waves crashing against green, sun spotted pastures and a lush coast appearing in my window.